Like the projector and projector screen, there are many options for a home theater system or amplifier. And just like the projector, the sky is the limit when it comes to pricing.
The first thing you’ll need to figure out on your home theater system search is what features are important to you.
If you were like me, you don’t even know what features you’re looking for.
Hopefully, my research will help cut a few hours off your amplifier search.
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What I Was Looking For In A Home Theater System
For the surround sound system, my criteria list was pretty straight forward:
- 5.1 surround sound
- Enough HDMI inputs (since the home theater system was going to control the inputs)
- a good enough wattage to get my attention
The home theater system is the heart of your theater setup. It controls all the video sources, so all the video signals pass through it. Since the projector in my setup was both 4K and HDR capable, the amplifier needed to support both 4K and HDR.
Options For A Home Theater System
Dolby Digital Options
Dolby, THX or DTS
There are three different standards for a home theater system – Dolby, THX, and DTS.
By far, the most common standard of the three is Dolby digital. I wasn’t able to figure out the differences between the three – other than THX and DTS usually cost more.
Because THX and DTS cost more, the choice, in the end, was more about which flavor of Dolby to get.
Which flavor really depends a lot on the speaker budget – and how many speakers can fit into that budget.
What Flavor Of Dolby?
I have always heard of Dolby Digital 5.1 but never really knew what the numbers meant. All I knew was that 5.1 was a good surround sound system.
In my search for a surround sound system, I finally understood the numbers.
A 5.1 system means there are 5 surround sound speakers and 1 subwoofer.
The 5 surround sound speakers would be:
- the center speaker
- left and right front speakers
- left and right rear speakers
In our days, there are a lot of systems that are Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound. The difference between 7.1 surround sound system and the 5.1 is an additional two back speakers.
When shopping for speaker systems, you’ll come across a third number, like 5.1.2 or 7.1.4. That third number is the number of in-ceiling speakers, also called presence speakers.
The latest iteration of Dolby is Dolby Atmos. The way they describe it is that is object-oriented sound. Which means Atmos does a better job of determining what sound should be sent to which speaker.
Below is a table with the different Dolby speaker layouts.
The Different Dolby Speaker Layouts
Speaker
|
5.1
|
5.1.2
|
5.2.2
|
7.1
|
7.2
|
7.1.2
|
Center Speaker
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Left Front Speaker
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Right Front Speaker
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Left Rear Speaker
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Right Rear Speaker
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Second Left Rear Speaker
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Second Right Rear Speaker
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Ceiling Speaker Count
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
Subwoofer Count
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
If you want more details about the different Dolby speaker setups, below is a great link from Dolby. (Fair warning it gets pretty speaker geeky)
Other Features Available
There are a lot of features available on home theater systems. But most of them aren’t a factor for a dedicated home theater system.
In my case, the surround sound system was only for the movie theater. And really only for the audio from a TV, DVD, NetFlix, etc…
Features like multi-zone, Bluetooth streaming, wifi streaming, and network audio playback are available. But none of those mattered in my setup at all.
The Home Theater System I Chose
Like I said earlier, your speaker budget will be the driving force behind your home theater system decision.
In the end, I found a great price on a set of 7.2 speakers, so I knew I could start looking for a Dolby 7.2 home theater system.
The amplifier I ended up going with is the Yamaha TSR-7810 7.2-Channel Network Receiver, which I purchased online.
It had great reviews and more than enough features for my setup at a reasonable price.
The amplifier has 7.2 channel surround sound, DTS:X, Dolby Atmos, the 4K HDR passthrough and support for 3D. It met all the criteria from my list, and it was also a reasonable price.
Get The Same Home Theater System Amplifier
Tips For This Home Theater System
Here are a few tips that’ll help your Yamaha TSR-7810 amplifier sound it’s best.
Make Sure To Run The YPAO Test
The YPAO test made a significant improvement in my setup.
I would definitely recommend running the test if you have a Yamaha home theater system that has YPAO.
The amp comes with a microphone that you plug into the front of the amp. All you need to do is center the microphone in the listening space and start the test.
Make sure you’re not standing between the microphone and any of the speakers while the test is being run.
That way, you don’t interfere with the microphone picking up the speaker sounds.
When I ran my test, I placed the mic on the top of the center seat in the theater. Then I started the test and stayed out of the room until it was complete.
YPAO will do a few tests on the speakers and optimize the audio for the space.
I’d say there was a big difference in the surround sound quality after the test ran. Even a non-audiophile like me was able to tell the difference.
Enable The Enhancer Option
Sound quality is not always an easy thing to describe. But enabling the enhancer option on the amp gives the sound a nicer, deeper, fuller sound.
Make Sure To Get Banana Plugs
When there are only a couple of wires going to the back of your equipment the wires are totally manageable.
But when you have multiple speakers, things can get messy in a hurry. In this case, there were 9 sets of speaker wire along with all the HDMI and power cables.
Banana plugs help make the wire management manageable.
The Banana Plugs I Chose
These banana plugs are great, they make the install much easier and cleaner.
They really helped with getting both subwoofer cables into a single port.
Mediabridge Banana Plugs – Corrosion-Resistant 24K Gold-Plated Connectors – 12 Pair/24 Banana Plugs
My past purchases for home theater systems have always included powered (active) subwoofers.
An active subwoofer is one that has an amplifier built-in, a passive subwoofer doesn’t.
When you’re dealing with a passive subwoofer, you’ll need to buy a separate amplifier to power the subwoofer.
That was a fact that escaped me when I was doing my research for a home theater system. I only figured it out when I installed the amplifier and speakers, and sadly, my subwoofers had no sound coming out of them.
After a few web searches, I found out I needed to buy a separate passive subwoofer amplifier.